Review: HTC One S

Sub Title: An Uneven Number

The HTC One S will be available on T-Mobile's 4G network on Apr. 25. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

HTC has been one of the more prolific players in the Android phone market of late. But so far, the Taiwanese manufacturer hasn’t quite solidified its desired reputation as a beloved premium handset maker, up with the likes of Apple, Samsung and Motorola.

HTC One S

6/10

Wired

Super thin and light with an attractive unique style. No problems with call quality or battery life. Premium materials add an upscale feel and 4G speeds are fast, when you can get a 4G signal. Photo software is top-notch. 25GB of free storage from Dropbox with purchase.

Tired

Protruding camera lens is begging for scuffs and scratches. Display is pixelated, not high definition. Beats Audio doesn’t make anything sound better, just louder. And while it has Beats Audio technology, it doesn’t come with Beats earbuds.

Over the past couple of years, HTC’s strategy has been to make dozens of phones at dozens of price points — something for everyone, but nothing truly memorable. That “almost there” legacy continues with the HTC One S, the first model in the company’s newly rebooted smartphone lineup to reach the U.S.

The One S is a sleek, speedy and attractive handset that runs Ice Cream Sandwich, but HTC has made a few design stumbles here which keep the phone from being truly exceptional.

The One S is exclusive to T-Mobile’s 4G network in the U.S., and is available starting Apr. 25 at a price of $200 with a two-year contract.

It’s pegged as a mid-range flagship phone. If you’ve ever used the old HTC Sensation, then the One S will feel familiar, as it takes some of its design cues from the older handset.

Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

The first thing I noticed was the quality of the materials used to make the One S. The anodized aluminum body feels strong and impressive. The feel is definitely metallic, and nothing like cheap plastic. The phone is super-thin (about a third of an inch thick) and at 4.21 ounces, very light.

I can’t think of a single phone on the market that looks quite like this.

The metallic back of the One S is beautiful, with a gradient paint job that starts as charcoal gray at the bottom and moves to a lighter blue-gray at the top. There is one simple microUSB port on the left side, with a headphone jack and power button up top and a volume rocker on the right side. There is no microSD card slot, so the included 16GB of storage will have to be enough. I should note that the phone comes with a total of 25GB of free storage from Dropbox, thanks to a special promotion. So if you’re comfortable living in the cloud, 16GB of onboard storage will be enough.

I can’t think of a single phone on the market that looks quite like this. That’s a good thing, as retail shelf appeal is a biggie. But while attractive, the aluminum back doesn’t feel particularly grippy. I often felt like the phone could slip out of my hand if I wasn’t careful in handling it.

The bezel that lines the edges of the 4.3-inch display dips slightly along the sides, allowing the aluminum edge of the case to meet the glass further down the sides of the device, rather than on the face. This means swipes and taps can be executed without ever encountering a hard edge on the face. Instead, you just feel smooth, responsive glass — a nice, thoughtful touch.

But the display itself isn’t all good. Colors were too bright and over-saturated. On websites, apps and photos, reds popped so much they seemed to be glowing. Blues were too warm, greens rendered and electric quality at times and over all everything felt too amped up. Comparing photos to their real-world counterparts and viewing the same image on other screens made these problems clear.

The 960×540 “qHD” resolution of the display was fine last year, but for a high-end phone in 2012, I’d expect at least a 720p resolution when watching video in landscape mode.

Another issue: the One S uses of a PenTile Super AMOLED display that’s inferior to what’s offered on Samsung and Apple phones — or even what’s seen on HTC’s One X (headed to AT&T). The PenTile pixel arrangement allows for a distracting pixelation of everything on the display. If you look closely, you’ll be able to see the jagged edges of app icons, text and images — particularly where black meets white. The subpar display takes away from the premium feel of the rest of the hardware.

Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

While photos and video never looked as true to life as I wanted, HTC’s ImageSense photo taking software is great. The 8-megapixel camera with an f/2.0 lens and single LED flash can capture detailed photos. But there’s one “problem”: Like all Ice Cream Sandwich phones I’ve used, the One S snaps photos freakishly fast. Almost too fast. So fast, you’ll want to take maybe six photos at a time with the hope of finding one that’s in focus and framed the way you’d like.

A theme quickly developed during my testing: For every upside I found, there was a downside to match.

HTC’s ImageSense camera software has a lot handy features, like the ability to shoot a still photo while simultaneously shooting video at 1080p and 30FPS. There are a few Instagram-like filters, and helpful burst and panorama modes.

A theme quickly developed during my testing: For every upside I found, there was a downside to match.

One item where I saw no upside was the inclusion of Beats Audio technology. HTC and T-Mobile claim the Beats Audio features can clean up the sound, offering a truer audio experience. But everything just sounded louder and bassier to me — something I didn’t need, even when listening to rap music on the One S.

Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

With the camera, it was the lens protruding from the back of the aluminum body. The camera’s lens is housed in a ring of anodized blue aluminum that juts from the phone’s body. This design flourish adds a modern and stylish visual touch. But when I placed the One S screen-up on any table, the lens was flat against the surface. This will cause it to scratch over time, and I shudder to think how distorted my photos and videos could get over the life of a two-year contract.

Unlike the camera, I do think I could live with HTC’s Sense 4 skin on top of Android Ice Cream Sandwich. Honestly, I’ve only ever enjoyed using Android in its pure, unaltered flavor. And while I don’t love Sense 4, it’s the first manufacturer-made skin I didn’t hate, either. It doesn’t improve on Ice Cream Sandwich in any way, but Sense 4 is light enough that it doesn’t slow down the OS either — though the 1.5GHz processor and 1GB of RAM surely help too. Graphics look flatter and more two-dimensional. HTC’s trademark clock widget is still there, but it doesn’t look so oversized and goofy. And if you want, you can always remove it from your home screen. I prefer Google’s stock keyboard, but HTC’s was fine for texting, typing e-mails and surfing the web.

But the problem with Sense 4 — and the One S overall — is that, while this is an improvement for HTC, and indeed a solidly performing device, it never goes far enough to really feel like it’s as good as it can be. The One S feels like it has one foot in the new HTC and one foot in the old and that’s not good enough for a flagship phone.